young guns take aim at declining sake sales - The Japan times

Sake in Japan is present process a picture makeover. It's desperately making an attempt to become one of the most cool kids once again. at present the 2d-lowest consumed alcoholic beverage within the nation — whiskey and brandy being the lowest — sake best has a 6.eight % market share in line with a country wide Tax company file in 2013.

a new era of sake brewers are hoping to turn issues around. however it's now not going to be handy because the growing older drinkers of usual sake are actually death — and taking the market with them. younger toji (professional brewers) are hoping to captivate younger generations of drinkers by growing new flavors with historic innovations, and their unconventional makes an attempt at making a return seem to be working.

Sake was alive and smartly at Craft Sake Week held in Tokyo's Roppongi Hills remaining month. all through the 10-day adventure, one hundred domestic breweries introduced their to a younger, enthusiastic crowd. The scene became some distance faraway from stuffy normal sake tastings. A live DJ spun pop and electronic tune, gourmet meals trucks served international cuisines and craft sake turned into poured from the arms of the very toji who labored over it.

"this is sake for my technology," noted 30-12 months-historical Katsuhiko Miyasaka, a brewer at Nagano's Miyasaka Brewing Co., which has been in his family unit for more than 350 years. and what's Miyasaka doing in a different way to his forefathers to comfy the future of his brewery's sake? expanding acidity and cutting back alcohol content.

"Sake should still be loved with food," he said. "japanese individuals at the moment are having fun with such an unlimited array of foreign cuisines, sake needs to evolve to be paired with now not most effective jap meals."

by way of expanding the acidity and lowering the alcohol content material, sake will also be matched more without problems with a big range of food, an awful lot like wine.

in a similar way, at Senkin Shuzo, the oldest sake brewery in Tochigi Prefecture, two brothers are making their mark on contemporary sake by treating it greater like a wine. Eldest brother Kazuki Usui is a former wine sommelier and is imparting his wine potential to the manner of making sake. He firmly believes that sake can exude terroir — that the characteristics of the native environment can be reflected within the drink. Senkin now cultivates its personal rice, which grows within the fields surrounding the brewery, and makes sake with the same water used to grow the vegetation. These are all contributing factors to Senkin's revolutionary, new wave of sake that shows an ideal stability between sweet and bitter with juicy acidity. even though it will probably style new, the thoughts used to provide it are historical. Senkin's sake is brewed in picket barrels as adverse to the now commonplace enamel tanks, and it has brought a "natural" latitude to its lineup, made the usage of spontaneous yeast and the historical kimoto approach for creating the yeast starter mash — a labor intensive system of hand mashing the rice and other materials with poles, which produces a sweeter and more acidic sake with richer flavors.

In Ishikawa Prefecture, 29-yr-ancient brewer Yasuyuki Yoshida has used the vigor of movie to raise his brewery's profile. "The birth of Sake" is a characteristic documentary that displays the story of his household's Yoshida Brewery, which has been operating for greater than a hundred and forty years. he is the sixth generation inheritor to the brewery and noted he wants to "step up and make sake more in vogue."

These younger guys are together hoping to changing the face of sake now not simplest in Japan however internationally. Craft sake has a narrative to inform and a distinct flavor to impart, one it really is as particular person as the brewers who make it.